Saturday Night

And so another evening fell upon this old city, and my nap turned into failures, mind flitting through opportunities, and rolling out of bed to darkness I felt like I had been waking for a thousand years. That moment where you open your eyes and see, but your mind continues to sleep.

Now, in the light, all of those events seem far away, the walk, the arrival, the comments, the dress. Fancy dress here, for everything, a rejection of the stiff British conservatism and uptight mores, thrown into madness through liquid courage. Without the same things holding me back I felt odd, and we passed through our girl-worries of the evening and out again into the light of the hallway, wine in plastic cups, from the kitchen to the lounge and back again, looking for something.

This is far too poetic, the night was none of these things and all of them. Standard, indeed, moreso than most of my nights here have been. Nothing, all night, no more than beer, friends and one raucous party. Until it began to close. Not having found anything superior elsewhere, we had returned to the beginning, hoping to discover what we were lacking. And back into the madness, lights, spilling throughout that maze of staircases and firedoors, we lost each other and ourselves. And in losing my way I found what the evening was missing, phone calls and shadows from last week, missing things I knew I didn't need, let alone want.

And walked home, silent, with my new friend and a stranger talking the whole way. A fitting ending, with the loveliest man I have met here escorting me to my corner. A gem.

And the next day on rehash we found, her and I, the sameness and apartness of the evening. A day-long event, puncutated with Sunday Roast Lunch and half-assed library time, then back to my home and that semblance of normal. Feeling so strange, just shy of three weeks, to be calling somewhere home.